Review(s): DVD The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)
A very good Bela Lugosi horror sampler
THE BELA LUGOSI COLLECTION, from Universal Studios Home Entertainment, is the first Universal DVD I have bought in a while that was a dual density single disk with no technical problems. After having to return two different copies of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS to Amazon.com because of technical glitches from two-sided printing, this technically flawless disk is a most welcome addition to the home of anyone who loves Mr. Lugosi. But I am still knocking it down one star because of laziness on the part of Universal in not having Sara Karloff or Bela Lugosi, Jr. chatting about their fathers. Or not having any real bonus material. Boris Karloff stars in three of these five movies, including one that has Lugosi in only a small role. Visual and sound quality are outstanding on all five Universal releases.
MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932) has Lugosi as Dr. Mirakle, who uses an ape to kidnap young women in 19th Century Paris in order to do blood experiments. Who will be the bride of Erik the ape? This sounds ludicrous, but brilliant German Expressionism set design, sincere performances by the future Leon Ames and lovely Sidney Fox (a woman), and a dead serious and scary performance by Lugosi make RUE MORGUE a solid horror classic.
THE BLACK CAT (1934) has a DRACULA reunion between Lugosi and David Manners, along with the monumental starring teaming of Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Karloff is an architect who has built an Art Moderne mansion on the ruins of a World War One prison camp that he was commandant of. He is our villain, having held Lugosi (as a famed psychiatrist good guy) hostage and stolen his wife Karin fifteen years in the past. Manners and young wife Jacqueline Wells and Lugosi are all involved in an accident and forced to stay in Karloff's sinister house, where devil worship is practiced in a stone basement. This Edgar G. Ulmer production is a "B" movie knockout, the finest movie on this disk.
THE RAVEN (1935) also stars Lugosi and Karloff. This time Lugosi is the bad guy surgeon who loves Poe torture devices and Karloff is a semi-good guy escaped convict who gets botched plastic surgery f rom Lugosi. Samuel S. Hinds' daughter is in a bad auto wreck and has her life saved by Lugosi, who wants the daughter for his girl friend. When Hinds refuses to allow that, Lugosi kidnaps Hinds and puts him on a torture rack. The rest of the cast seems to be staying at his house on a rainy night and finds their way down to his hidden torture rooms. This is a solid *** horror film with a lot of chills and only 61 minutes. Again, the authority in Lugosi's and Karloff's performances makes it work.
THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936) also stars Karloff and Lugosi. It plays like a Republic horror serial that starts in Transylvania, goes to South Africa, and ends up in Paris. Karloff invents a radium ray that kills people-or makes them invisible, I'm not sure which. Karloff somehow gets a Nobel Prize for the invention. But Lugosi takes credit for it and dies when Karloff meets up with him and confronts him. This is a passable horror adventure, again made watchable by the presence of the two horror film giants.
Finally, we have BLACK FRIDAY (1940), which reworks a much-better Edward G. Robinson crime drama called TWO SECONDS (1932). Ready to go to the electric chair, Karloff gives notes on his life and scientific work to a reporter; his life is unfolded in flashback to show how he got to Sing-Sing. This is a starring crime drama programmer vehicle for Karloff, with Lugosi in a small role as a criminal mastermind. It is a confused affair for me, and I was never sure just what Karloff did as a scientist to justify a death penalty end. People die, then come back to life. Characters are mentioned who are not listed on the beginning and ending cast list. This, again, plays like a 70 minute Universal horror serial.
As a showcase for Bela Lugosi, four of these five films qualify superbly. BLACK FRIDAY should have been taken out and replaced with WHITE ZOMBIE (1933), but I am not sure whether WHITE ZOMBIE is a Universal release. The transfers are superb, with excellent sound and picture for a change. Again, I am knocking the set down one star because it has no bonuses when bonuses (like son and daughter reminiscences) would have helped a lot. Too bad it's from cost-cutting Universal and not Warner Home Video. But someone who wants to know what Bela Lugosi was like could do far worse than this set.
Bela and Boris
Lately I've found myself on a Bela Lugosi kick - purely by accident. I've picked up a few public domain collections and there he is. This collection of course is great since the transfers are done with care. Most of the films are about an hour long so you can rewatch them and see the amazing chemistry between Lugosi and Karloff during this period. Sure Karloff's star was shining, but neither man had Gene Hackman-ish careers. Both got their "comebacks" in the end. Karloff made his own playing himself in "Targets" and Bela had Martin Landau give him respect in "Ed Wood."
This collection deserves space next to Universal Monsters. Hopefully Karloff will also get a set named after him in the near future.
Two classic and three dogs ain't bad
I bought this for "The Black Cat" alone. It's a brilliantly directed and supremely eerie film. I saw "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Raven" when I was a child in the sixties, and was unimpressed with both. However, I now believe that "Murders" is one of the most under-rated films of Universal's golden age of horror.
The direction by Robert Florey, the cinematography by Karl Freund, and the art direction by Charles Hall will satisfy the cravings of atmospheric horror fans. The sources that Florey uses--the Poe story and the silent classic, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary"--dovetail nicely. What seems rather silly in the Poe story (an ape escapes from a sailor to commit senseless murder) is more plausible and horrific when the ape's owner becomes Dr. Mirakle, a mad scientist intent on proving that humans and apes are evolutionary cousins.
I love the scene in which Lugosi talks with the ape and translates for the carnival audience. It doesn't seem as far-fetched today, considering Jane Goodall's and Diane Fosse's research into primate communication. Koko the gorilla can actually communicate through sign-language. I was also impressed by the way director/writer Florey zeroed in on a subtext in Poe's story. The ape's language, which appears to be unintelligible human speech to people of different nationalities who are ear-witnesses to the murder, demonstrates that humans are just another species of primate inhabiting the planet.
All these thematic elements, together with Lugosi's understated, sinister performance, the scene in the laboratory where Dr. Mirakle injects the street walker with ape blood (Arlene Francis made a good screamer) and fiendish assistant Noble Johnson (who seemed to make a specialty of this kind of role) cuts the ropes that bind her between crossbeams, releasing her half-dressed body through a trap door into the river, make this one of the most daring horror films of the pre-code era.
The print looks fine to me, much better that the one I saw in the sixties. And neither the bland performances of Leon Ames and pretty Sidney Fox as the love interest, nor the man in the ape suit detracts from the over all effect. The intercutting between the actual animal and the costumed double is not too jarring, considering what was being done elsewhere in this era.
After seeing "Murders," I thought "The Raven" might turn out to be as pleasant a surprise. But I was wrong. Lugosi hams shamelessly, and the plot is very similar to "The Black Cat," with Lugosi supplying Karloff's place as the arch fiend. Also, I am convinced Karloff's make-up is meant to recall his role as Morgan the butler in "The Old Dark House," but it's extremely artificial-looking. The other films on the disc are likewise not well done, and similarities between the plots of "The Invisible Ray" and Todd Browning's brilliant "The Devil Doll," another revenge melodrama made for MGM the previous year, shows that after 1935 Universal had sacrificed originality, attempting to cash in on the horror successes of other sudios.
I give the two classics my highest recommendation. But the disc gets only four stars because the other films suffer by comparison.
Related DVD's The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)
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